


Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One Before

by Glinda



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Canonical Lesbian Character, F/F, Interspecies, Pre-Canon, Xenophilia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-15
Updated: 2011-06-15
Packaged: 2017-10-20 10:52:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/212006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Glinda/pseuds/Glinda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You know the one about the lizard with the eight-foot tongue? No?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One Before

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be just a little 500 word or so ficlet to fill a square on my [](http://kink-bingo.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**kink_bingo**](http://kink-bingo.dreamwidth.org/) card for ‘bodies/body parts’ because that tongue of Vastra’s just called out for it. Damn story decided it wanted something resembling a plot…
> 
> Warnings: Brief reference to non-consensual acts carried out by characters other than the protagonists.

  
Most people who see them in action figure out the true nature of their relationship pretty quickly. Out on a case, away from the conventions and restrictions of polite society, they fall easily into the ‘married-couple’ dynamic that seems to be standard among all the other successful crime-fighting partnerships they encounter over the years. Though in fact the dynamic develops long before they become a married-couple in all but name. A sign of their deep trust in each other’s abilities that Jenny treasures.

Naturally most of those who encounter them in these circumstances are from the criminal classes, and have no qualms about being crude about the presumed nature of their relationship. Especially once they encounter Vastra’s decidedly impressive tongue. For a long time the comments serve only to confuse and irritate Vastra, while they utterly mortify Jenny.

~

The first time Jenny meets Madame Vastra is by accident. She is out running an errand for her boss – a good if foolish man, who has bankrupted himself attempting to clear his wastrel brother’s debts – which required her to be out later than she ought. She leaves by the backdoor, circumspection being necessary, and she should by rights immediately head in the opposite direction to the disturbance. Yet there is something about the sounds of the ruckus that are a little off and draw her in. Jenny hesitates only a moment, but in that moment she catches the sound of a mocking, utterly in control, undeniably female voice. A woman is besting several, by the sounds of it, brigands. This, she must see.

Jenny is not disappointed. The woman is hooded and cloaked, but she moves with grace. Brutal, deadly grace, but grace nonetheless. She is currently engaged in combat with one the criminals, while several others are felled around her – either out cold or nursing their injuries. Distinctly apart from these lies the mutilated wheezing body of the man who the others had clearly been setting about before the hooded avenger had intervened. The instincts of growing up a midwife’s daughter make her long to help him, but there is a more pressing matter at hand.

One of the other men has rejoined the fight, and though the hooded woman dispatches him easily with an easy flick – a flick of what? Some sort of whip or rope perhaps? Bu it is red, and reminds her oddly of watching a toad catch a fly – the momentary distraction allows her main opponent to get close enough to see the face under the hood. He backs off immediately, his face twisted in fear and disgust.

“What kind of monster are you?” he spits out.

“Less of a monster than you,” she responds and kills him with an economical swipe of her blade that nonetheless dislodges her hood revealing her true nature to the world.  
Jenny doesn’t notice this part quite yet as what she can see but the hooded woman cannot is that one of the other assailants has been faking unconsciousness and is now sneaking up on her. Jenny does the first thing that comes to mind. She knocks him out cold with a handy lump of half-rotted wood.

The woman turns slowly to look at them; she and Jenny stare at each other for a long moment before either of them speaks.

“You knocked that man out from six foot away,” says Jenny eventually. If she’s going to die at the hands of a beautiful, deadly, green lizard woman she’d like to at least know that she was right. “With your tongue, right?”

The woman nods curtly and then opens her mouth as though to speak only for the same tongue to whip out and curl itself around Jenny’s wrist. Her heart is going twenty to the dozen and by rights she should be terrified but she’s not. She doesn’t understand quite what this feeling is but the one thing it isn’t is fear. Jenny finds herself pulled forward gently but firmly until she is right in front of the other woman.

The woman takes in the maid’s uniform and the lump of wood Jenny is still grasping firmly in her free hand and comments, “Something tells me that you’re wasted in service.”

“My master has gone bankrupt, Madame. I’ll soon be in need of new employment.” Responds Jenny promptly.

“Are you now? How strange, I think I find myself with a job for you.”

~

The job is essentially as housekeeper – a considerable promotion – with a bit of chief cook and personal secretary thrown in. Jenny doesn’t know a huge amount about running a household herself rather than being part of the well-oiled machine of one, but Vastra isn’t like any other mistress. For a start her dietary requirements are entirely unique and its not as though she worries overly about her position in society being damaged by a lack of sumptuous dinner parties so Jenny has time and space to learn. Occasionally it also involves helping Vastra move inconvenient bodies.

Her most important role, however, is in maintaining her mistress’ cover. So Jenny gets to invent a wholly fabricated past life for her. It is Jenny who suggests using Madame as part of Vastra’s name, weaving a story about a terrible fire that killed her entirely fictional husband and left her terribly scarred as cover for the hood for any company that Jenny can’t repel. The role of widow gives them a respectability that eases their way in society when they require to move in it for cases and Vastra plays her role with a perfect balance of genuine grief and steeliness that discourages any potential suitors. It all works remarkably well for them, and given that Vastra doesn’t entirely understand the class structure of society and Jenny has never been brilliant at observing them they soon fall into something closer to friendship.

~

The first time Jenny kills someone is entirely by accident. Certain people would very much like Vastra to stop doing what she does. Normally they just send assassins to try – and fail – to kill her, but this time they’ve decided that kidnapping Jenny will be a more effective method. Not to mention a tactic less likely to end with their agent dead in the front hall of Vastra’s house.

Unfortunately for their agent, when they try to take Jenny she’s in the middle of preparing dinner. Vastra’s culinary pleasures, require somewhat more brutal utensils to prepare than your standard human fare. So when the agent sneaks up on her and tries to keep her quiet but instead ends up accidentally suffocating her, Jenny lashes out with the first thing to hand.

Gutted like a fish is the only relevant metaphor Jenny can think of, though she refrains from saying it aloud while Vastra is examining the body, because said body does in fact have fins and most of his internal organs are currently on the kitchen floor. Instead she asks, “should he be that colour?”

“Bright red? Yes, that’s a natural shade for Blowfish. What he shouldn’t be is in this sector of space, let alone this planet. I’ve really upset someone if they’re sending alien assassins after me now,” says Vastra. She looks unblinkingly up at Jenny for a long moment before offering her a hand and continuing, “you look like you’re either going to throw up or make a highly inappropriate pun, whichever it is out with it.”

Vastra’s hand is cool and reassuring against Jenny’s overheated skin. Grounding her enough that she no longer feels like throwing up. She manages to resist the ‘gutted like the fish he was’ line but not the mildly hysterical giggles that accompany it. Vastra makes no move to take her hand back even after the giggles have subsided and Jenny feels more like she’s on an even keel again.

“I think,” says Vastra gently, “that it’s high time I taught you to use a sword properly.”

“Yes,” agrees Jenny still a little dazed, “if I’m going to kill people I’d rather it be intentional rather than by accident.”

They begin her new training regime after dinner.

~

Some jobs are definitely two-person affairs, and as Jenny gets more advanced and experienced, Vastra starts bringing her along. They work well together and the adrenaline is like nothing else Jenny has ever experienced in her life. Which is probably why she nearly falls off the roof they’re on once the fight is over and she’s beginning to come down from the excitement. It’s a moment’s misstep but it nearly kills her and only Vastra’s quick reactions save her. Although Jenny barely notices it at the time, Vastra’s panicked whip of the tongue that had pulled her to safety has raised an angry looking wheal on Jenny’s wrist. She doesn’t release she’s been worrying at it until she catches Vastra watching her with concern. She tries not to touch it while Vastra’s around after that, but alone in her room at night she touches it to her heart’s content. Under the cover of her blankets she can admit that holding the injured wrist tightly sends little shocks more pleasure than pain through her system. Little shocks that gather right between her legs and need to be released with one hand stuffed in her mouth lest she call her friend’s name aloud.

Even after it has healed, whenever Jenny needs release from that particular type of tension, she will pinion the wrist of one hand with a piece of string and use it to control that hand’s movement as she touches herself. Jenny doesn’t have the words to describe the mixed feels of safety and sexual pleasure the memory provokes to herself, never mind to Vastra. So she bites her tongue and tells herself that what she has is enough.

~

It isn’t enough. Not for either of them.

Jenny doesn’t quite realise it until after one particularly scrappy training session, where Vastra seems unwilling to stop fighting and admit that Jenny has won. Swords have been abandoned and they are to all intents and purposes wrestling on the floor. Eventually Jenny gets Vastra decisively pinned, only to lose her balance land flat on top of her. It is more of a case of hitting each other in the mouth with the other’s lips at first but they get the hang of it quickly enough. Then there’s a whole other kind of wrestling, which comes with grinding and was, despite the interspecies differences, undeniably sex.

Jenny wakes up some time later to find Vastra watching her with a mixture of confusion and adoration and realises that doomed she may be but at least she has excellent company to be doomed with.

~

Comparative biology is a subject that interests them both from an intellectual standpoint. The differences and similarities between their two species are fascinating and they can spend hours talking together of the different paths for evolution to take. Menstruation and breast-feeding puzzle Vastra deeply – she has no breasts but has come to know Jenny’s breasts intimately. Equally laying eggs is an alien concept to Jenny but she explores Vastra’s egg sac with an attention to detail that would put the most dedicated scientist to shame. The practical implications of comparative biology are so much fun it’s amazing they get any crime fighting done.

However much enthusiasm they throw into exploring each other, Vastra’s extraordinary tongue only ever peripherally comes into play. They kiss closed mouthed and, no matter how many crude jibes come at them from criminals they apprehend, neither of them broaches the subject.

~

It will be nearly a year later, when they are both more versed in this particular kind of relationship that they will finally resolve the confusion. A particularly lazy evening to themselves will see Vastra paying particular attention to Jenny’s body. Trailing round breasts and over hips, taking advantage of the length of her tongue to make her lover squirm in delight. Moving downwards towards her lover’s sex, curious to taste what she has only previously touched, Vastra is stopped in her tracks by Jenny dissolving into helpless laughter.

“That tickles?” Vastra asks, “good tickle or bad tickle?”

Jenny struggles to get her laughter under control before she responds with a shake of her head. “No, not at all. It’s…it’s very good. I, I just suddenly realised what all those brigands who made inappropriate remarks about your tongue were actually implying…” She trails off into giggles.

Vastra thinks about what she’d been planning and all her previous concerns about the violent implications of those jokes, before pressing a closed mouth kiss to Jenny’s sex and laying her head down on her stomach. Allowing herself a gentle laugh at herself. She enjoys the soft vibrations of Jenny’s laughter as it quivers through her, and feels some long held tension she hadn’t known was there seep away from her lover.

She curses this century for having conditioned them both to think of entitled aristocrats with long whips and cruel smiles rather than the fun things that they could do with her tongue.

“I would never…” she assures Jenny.

“I know you wouldn’t,” agrees Jenny and Vastra feels all her senses caught on edge at the regret in her voice.

She remembers all the times she’s whipped out her tongue to snatch Jenny’s hand away from an unnoticed corrosive or to pull her away from some unseen danger. They way she’d always dropped her hand quickly afterwards in response to the raised heartbeat and a thousand other tells of mammalian fear. The way afterwards she’d catch Jenny touching or worrying at some small wheal or bruise from it. How she’d take Jenny’s insistence that it was nothing as a sign that Jenny was hurt but wouldn’t show it because she knew it hadn’t been intentional. She reassesses each of these moments with new eyes.

Flicking her tongue out slowly so that Jenny can spot what she’s about to do, Vastra catches Jenny’s left hand up from where it has been worrying at the bed sheet beside her. There’s the usual catch of breath and heightened heart rate, but underneath that there is something else. She knows that sound in this context, without the usual overlay of anxiety and this close to Jenny’s body she can focus on what Jenny’s skin is telling her. She tastes of desire.

Emboldened Vastra pulls Jenny’s hand towards her mouth; Jenny watches her, eyes wide and hand unresisting. Close up Vastra can see that the fork of her tongue has raised a small wheal on Jenny’s thumb. She pulls the thumb into her mouth laving it gently. Unlike Jenny’s own saliva, Vastra’s does not contain any substance that will assist with the healing but she knows that Jenny will appreciate the gesture’s comforting intention.

“I thought that if what I wanted was so obvious to strangers, it was inevitable that you would come to see it too, would come to despise me for my desires. Once I understood that you, felt the same as me about certain things, it was different. You so hate to see me hurt, even more if you think you’ve been the cause of it, it seemed unkind to raise the subject. It was hardly a great sacrifice.” Jenny assures her – between telltale gasps of pleasure - bringing her other hand down to stroke gently across the scales of Vastra’s face.

“I’m sure accommodations can be made,” says Vastra breathlessly.

“I’d like that,” replies Jenny, eyes alight with pleasure.

Vastra loves her fiercely in that moment. The way Jenny is never ashamed of her own desires. Disguising them only when they will endanger herself or cause harm to others. Part of her whispers that this is foolish sentiment, that she has allowed her to become far too attached to her strange warm-blooded companion. The rest of her agrees that this is true and that it is wonderful.

“I’m going to kiss you now,” she assures Jenny. “I may not stop for quite some time.”

“I definitely approve of that plan,” agrees Jenny, pulling Vastra up her body until they can lie side by side, entirely intertwined.

~

The next time they are pursuing some criminal through London’s back streets and he makes a lascivious comment about Vastra’s tongue, Jenny will merely raise a suggestive eyebrow and share a secretive smile (or if the adrenaline is running high, a heated one) with Vastra.

And then Vastra will knock him out cold with a quick flick of her tongue for his cheek.  



End file.
